doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com Opening Day Dove Gun

I'm like GLS on this one; owner marks the stands in advance and a "fairly" honest draw occurs prior to entering the field. I say fairly honest, because it is understood that Mr. Newbern always gets the shade tree. As it should be...Geo

I've never shot doves over a field like those described here. We hunted them in the late afternoons and sometimes dawn over tanks and ponds. I haven't hunted them in decades since, but do any of you dove diehards shoot them at water?

Yes and that is usually a very sporty shoot with late evening birds close but in a hurry. Even sportier is a roost shoot along a thick fence-line grown up in privet. Fast and furious...Geo

It was definitely sporty. Best ponds in KS were between bottomland milo along the Kaw and upland timber where they would roost. Tasty little buggers for sure.

I don't hunt them anymore. Iowa doves just don't do it for me. I saw some last night at a drying waterhole where I was hoping for teal (obviously extinct). I decided not to waste any bismuth 5s on them however, but I thought about it.

I'm glad a couple or a few of the folks admit to a roost shoot now and then. Getting tarred and feathered online by 'sportsmen' is tiny trade off for that true fast and furious wingshooting experience.

Waterhole shooting is part and parcel to West Texas Dove shooting.....it can be as easy or challenging as you choose to make it. Since the water holes are mine , I make the conditions..... I much prefer to ascertain the flight pattern into the water source and set myself up on the flight path into the tank (pond). Much sportier flight shooting, and the doves do not associate the shooting with the waterhole...Birds that are missed or not shot at proceed on to the water and drink unmolested..Therefore you do not run them off for several days with a prolonged shoreline barrage.
.410 dove shooting reputations are easily established on hovering 20 yard doves setting their wings to drink.....
I really prefer the challenge of bird in full flight headed to the waterhole. Averages are lower, but the results much more satisfying.

I frequently shoot windmill holes that could well be the setting for a John Cowan painting.....

Dove shooting is day and night from the days of my youth. When I first became an dove shooting addict, there were a number of soybean and wheat farmers attending the church I attended; and these guys would plant a few acres of millet every year for hay. Dove season was a social event then; men of the church and their sons would be invited. We'd gather about 1:PM for fellowship, then take the field about a hour later; old timers were always given their "spots" and the young folks like me would take whatever was left, but there were always plenty of birds. By the 90's most of these older farmers had retired or died; and since there seemed to be little profit for small time N. GA farmers, most just quit. The guys still farming saw dove fields as another cash drop; some charged for the season, and others by the day. Can't blame them for that as dove fields are an expensive and uncertain proposition; but dove shooting as a community social event died, and what few fields that remained were always too crowded. With so little farming now in the area I grew up, dove numbers are nothing like they once were. In my opinion the Clemson WMA shoot was dangerous; and since so many WMA deer hunts are limited, why not put people limitations on the dove hunt? Shooters were restricted to 50 rounds each by the rules, but I saw several folks sending kids back to the truck for more shells; so clearly that restriction was not being enforced. All of my dove shooting has been limited to N. GA (mostly) and SC; and unless I found doves feeding in ragweed or poke berries, was always around a grain field. My only other "foreign" dove shooting foray was while visiting in Oklahoma where the host handed me a shotgun and we headed out to his water tank. It was a slow afternoon; we saw two doves and I killed them both. Always wanted to try TX and AZ; and if I ever hit the lottery, take a foray to South America. Those trips will likely never happen, but man oh man was I ever privileged to enjoy some great dove shooting as a younger man!

Topgun, I am glad to see you use the phrase "dove shooting" because in 99.9% of the time, there's no hunting for them. Before the perfection of herbicides tailored to eliminate it, some of my most memorable shooting was in cotton fields where goat weed (croton) was rampant. Gil

40+ MPH wind day and DIRT in the air
14 doves
Remington 3200 Mod/Full
Tough day because of the dust and dirt

Mike

skeettx, a gentleman at the range today offered a Remington 3200 o/u for sale. Not a bad price. I'm not an o/u guy; son is. What do you think of that now 50 year old gun?